Esclarmonde de Foix (after 1151 – c. 1215) was the daughter and sister of two Counts of Foix and a prominent Cathar. Due to a similarity in their names, she is frequently conflated with her niece, Esclarmonde of Montségur. This is not helped by either the numerous legends that have sprung up around both women and are frequently attributed to a singular woman representing both or the occasional confusion of Catharism with various other religions.

Foix is on the left side of the map, south of Toulouse.[Routes des châteaux cathares, pinpin, Source: Wikimedia Commons]

There are, however, some things we know for sure as well as some things we can infer about her life. She was born Count Roger Bernard I of Foix and Cecile Trencavel. Her parents’ court, like many others in the Occitan region, stood between the Spanish kingdoms and Al-Andalus in the south and the rest of Europe in the north and east. Another result of this central positioning was a local tolerance for many varied expressions of religion. As a child, Esclarmonde would have had some access to the culture and learning of all of these. She married Jordan II of L’Isle Jourdain and had at least six children with him. It is likely that she turned fully to Catharism sometime before or during their marriage, but did not embrace it openly until after his death in 1200.* In 1204 she received the Consolamentum** and became a Cathar bonnefemme. Shortly thereafter she and her sister-in-law, Phillipa founded a girl’s school that also functioned as a place of retirement for elderly bonnefemmes. In 1207 she participated in (and possibly helped organize) a religious debate between leaders in the Cathar and Roman Catholic faiths.

Montsegur. One of the last Cathar castles to fall, it was besieged in 1243 and surrendered 10 months later in 1244, 15 years after the end of the Albigensian Crusade.[Montsegur, photographed by Emeraude, Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Two years after that failed, Pope Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in the Languedoc region. It is thought that Esclarmonde was the one responsible for the decision to fortify the castle at Monsegur. She did not survive the crusade, though exactly how or where she died is now unknown. Legend states that she flew off to Heaven as a dove. *Or he may have died a few years later. Huzzah for conflicting sources. Most say 1200 though. **This was the Cathar’s ceremony of spiritual baptism and the ritual by which one of the credentes became a bonhomme or bonnefemme. More on Cathar beliefs and religious hierarchy here.